Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Be a Star!

I don't know if any of you watch The Next Food Network Star. I do. It's sort of like the Apprentice with food. Eight contestants have to complete cooking challenges and each week one is eliminated. I haven't decided yet if I would actually tune in to watch any of them on a regular basis. Of the eight starters, only three have professional cooking experience and one of those guys had to quit his cook job to make more money. I suppose Third can relate to that.
For one of their challenges they were told to present their culinary point of view. Or what I would have called their gimmick. So there was the ethnic focus, the regional focus, the fresh & healthy focus. But why not a cooking-for-your-pets focus? That is such a trend these days. Seems to be the first thing you ask a new dog friend is "what do you feed your dog?" Maybe they could have a show featuring meals you and your dog could share. Healthy for poochie, healthy for you. Separate plates, of course. But I digress.

Anyway, I started thinking we should all get our own cable shows. We could easily fill a day's programming with:

2 Comments:

I thank you for your phrasing of "understanding art" instead of "art appreciation" which is a term of pseudo-highbrow claptrap used by the ignorant to prove themselves as such. Now that you've got me started, I would add the only institutions that have art education on the right track are universities that teach art history as humanities akin to a sociology/literature crossbreed and kindergarten which taps into the pure creative spirit. All else is a series of transitioning filler. As my good friend Leonardo da Vinci said, "Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art." Additionally, I am most happy to report that I am the founder and director of the new arts ministry at my church. Thank you very much. Banter? Depends on the topic but as you can see I do pretty well on subjects of the spirit, art, and also just about anything else that doesn't dwell on topics on par with the price of lettuce. Now for another cup of coffee...

Actually, I think of "art appreciation" as simply the popular consensus that yeah-art-is-a-good-thing-to-have. It never occurred to me that you could separate art from its times.A few years ago I was in a class that was not an art class, nor was it a renaissance class but the subject of renaissance art came up. The professor, who happens to specialize in the Italian renaissance, challenged that famous artists were just highly skilled craftsmen, as per the job training system of those times. Wish I'd known the da Vinci quote then.Props on the art ministry. Nice that churches are recognizing the multiple dimensions of people.